Part I

The activity of the heart center never demonstrates in connection with individuals. This is a basic fact. What devastates most disciples is the solar plexus ability (when purified [114] and consecrated) to identify itself with individuals. The heart center cannot react, except under group impetus, group happiness or unhappiness, and other group relations.

All this is a somewhat new concept for the average esotericist and theosophist, and is one of the new items of information which disciples (in preparation for initiation) are [115] told. This truth lies behind the method of meditation which I shall seek to give you, and which is divided into two parts - one aspect or technique will cover approximately the first six months, and the other the second six months. This dual meditation is a group meditation and will have primarily a group effect. This fact must be most carefully recognized by each disciple.

I would have you ponder most earnestly upon this imparted information. The meditation which I wish to assign will be divided into two parts:

• Stage I. A stage wherein there is a lifting of the energy of the heart center to the head by means of directed, controlled aspiration - deliberately stimulated, mentally appreciated, and emotionally propelled. I am here choosing my words with care for their symbolic import.
• Stage II: Next, the deliberate dispatch of spiritual energy to the solar plexus, through an act of the will; this will result in the awakening of the hitherto quiescent point of force which lies behind (or rather within) the active and awakened center.

It will be apparent to you that the first stage is occupied with what is regarded esoterically as the "withdrawal to the center of inspiration" and it is to this withdrawal that I call you all today, prior to the definite and detailed group work - later to be outlined. Under cyclic law there are periods of outgoing and of withdrawing, of progressing in service towards the periphery of activity and also of a conscious abstraction of the consciousness from the outer circle and its centering again at the very heart of life. It is to this retreating within that I summon you - a retreat which must be continued and consciously held until the next Full Moon of May. You might regard it as the individual phase of alignment and of preparation to which each of you is called, and called prior to participation in the group meditation with which you will [116] be occupied for the remainder of the year, after May. Stage II and its successful issue will be largely dependent upon the success achieved during Stage I.

Stage I itself is divided into two parts, and to these I now call your attention. The first part of Stage I is a short dynamic meditation, carried out every morning with the greatest regularity. The second part is a reflective process or cultivated recognition which will serve to condition your day's activity. This conditioning attitude should be one of a constant recollection of purpose and objective, and a process of what has been called "intentional living." It connotes the effort to live consciously at the center and then to work outward from there in radiatory, magnetic activity. I am not here speaking symbolically but literally for it is all a question of the focus of consciousness. If this attitude can be constantly held until the Full Moon of May, the individual seeds within the group periphery (could we symbolically call it the seed pod or sheath?) will become living and potent units of energy (spiritual energy) and the succeeding period of group interrelation and group activity will be correspondingly potent. In the furtherance of this process, leading to radiatory and magnetic living, the method suggested is as follows: